Trembling and quaking,
E’en high Heav’n shaking!
So wears he out his awful doom,
Until dread Ragnarok be come.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones).
In this painful position Loki was condemned to remain until the twilight of the gods, when his bonds would be loosed, and he would be free to take part in the last conflict, on the battlefield of Vigrid, where he was destined to fall by the hand of Heimdall, who would be slain at the same time.
As we have seen, the venom-dropping snake in this myth is the cold mountain stream, whose waters, falling from time to time upon the subterranean fire, evaporate, and the steam, escaping through fissures, produces the earthquakes and geysers with which the inhabitants of Iceland, for instance, were so familiar.
NORWEGIAN WATERFALL.
When the gods were all reduced to the rank of demons by the introduction of Christianity, Loki was confounded with Saturn, who had also been shorn of all his divine attributes, and both were considered the prototypes of Satan. The last day of the week, which was held sacred to Loki, was known in the Norse as Laugardag, or wash day, but in English it was changed to Saturday, and was said to owe its name not to Saturn but to Sataere, the thief in ambush, and the Teutonic god of agriculture, who is supposed to be merely another form of the god Loki.